The 26-year-old man was convicted of two counts of murder and three of attempted murder, while the judge said he deemed him so culpable that in this case life would mean life.

“The victims had no chance of escaping the hail of bullets,” said Judge Olaf Arnoldi in his statement.

The man, identified only as Mehmet Y., fired 12 shots at the car in which his former wife was sitting with four members of her family. Last August’s attack in the north central district of Wedding shocked the German capital, largely unused to gun violence.

“It was a planned attack,” said Judge Arnoldi.

The prosecution argued that three months after his divorce, Mehmet Y., had acted out of “revenge, hate and jealousy.”

He had not accepted the separation, the Tagesspiegel newspaper reported.

The paper said he jumped up in court, shouting, “Lies, lies, lies, from A to Z. I cannot tolerate it.”

He had often disrupted the trial with tirades against his former father-in-law, who he blamed for his wife’s moving back home after the separation. The separation was allegedly due to his bullying and violence.

“They never gave me a chance,” he said during the trial. “I swear by Allah that I did not mean to fire at the people,” he said, suggesting that he did not see the five people in the car.

His defence lawyers argued that he was mentally ill and had heard voices. They had called for him to be put in a secure mental institution, and said they would appeal the sentence.

DAPD/The Local/hc